A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies analyzing worker and chief executive pay at the top government contractors and subsidy recipients found that the majority of CEOs at these firms rake in more than 100 times the median pay of their full-time employees.

“This new data should boost the already growing movement to use the power of the public purse to crack down on corporations that refuse to share the wealth.”
—Sarah Anderson, Institute for Policy Studies

For example, Lockheed Martin gets more taxpayer money in government contracts than any other publicly held company, accounting for 97 percent of its overall revenue. At Lockheed Martin in 2017, the median compensation for an employee was $123,231, while CEO Marillyn A. Hewson received $22,866,843—186 times that of a typical worker.

The CEO-worker pay ratio at Lockheed Martin reflects compensation differences at the top five government contractors last year, which were all weapons and military firms—Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. Among these companies, the average pay for chief executives was $21 million.

“This new data should boost the already growing movement to use the power of the public purse to crack down on corporations that refuse to share the wealth,” declared Sarah Anderson, author of the new report, titled How Taxpayers Subsidize Giant Corporate Pay Gaps (pdf).

“Taxpayers should not be subsidizing extreme pay gaps in any way, whether through tax, contracting, or subsidy policies,” Anderson concluded. The report outlines the wage gap for executives and workers at the top 50 government contractors as well as the top 50 recipients of subsidies.

While the contractors that got the most taxpayer money in 2017 were military firms, there were others that raked in millions and had notable CEO-worker pay ratios, including telecom giant AT&T (366), the healthcare company Centene (379), and DXC Technology, which paid its CEO a whopping 806 times more than its workers.

Among recipients of federal subsidies, the highest ratios were at PPG Industries (382), Honeywell International (333), and General Motors (295). At the 33 firms that received subsidies and paid executives more than 100 times that of workers, the CEOs made an average of $15 million last year.